Mysterious radiation event of 774 might be (a little) less mysterious

Calculations that ruled out solar flare were done incorrectly.

Everybody loves a good “whodunit?” How else could you explain the number of television shows with the prefix “CSI”? So when a study in Nature identified a previously unknown (and very large) spike in carbon-14 around the year 774 AD, it raised a lot of eyebrows. This radioactive isotope of carbon is created when energetic particles from beyond the Earth transform atmospheric nitrogen to a form of carbon with two neutrons more than the most common isotope.

Nobody could think of a historical account of unusual phenomena in the heavens that might have triggered a surge in 14C production, and something like this should have been hard to miss. So when a college student from UC-SD found a record of a “red crucifix” in the skies over Britain in that year, Naturepublished his note.

The original report, published by researchers from Nagoya University in Japan, involved analysis of Japanese cedars. Because the production of carbon-14 in the atmosphere varies over time, researchers often pursue records of that variability to increase the accuracy and precision of radiometric carbon dating. Tree rings provide one of those records.

When the researchers sifted through their data, they discovered the unusually high amount of carbon-14 in rings from 774 and 775 AD, and did some thinking about what could potentially have caused it. There were a couple of possibilities to consider. One was a solar flare, which can launch charged particles into Earth’s atmosphere that generate carbon-14. Another was a nearby supernova, which releases large amounts of gamma radiation.

No increase in carbon-14 has been found to coincide with documented supernovae in 1006 or 1054 AD, so in order to explain the spike in 774 AD, a supernova would have to be either many times larger or much closer than those. But such an event would have been impossible to ignore—the “guest star” that appeared in 1006 was brighter than Venus— and no record of it was known.

So what about a large solar flare? They put that down as unlikely, too, as their calculations showed it would take a flare at least a thousand times larger than anything we knew about to do the job. Again, the effects would have been remarkable, with otherworldly aurorae and a deadly thrashing of the ozone layer.

So the source of the radioactive carbon was a mystery, but one that was cleared up last week. It turns out they did the math wrong. A pair of researchers from Washburn University and the University of Kansas published a comment in Nature pointing out that the solar flare calculations included a rather fundamental error. Working backwards from the intensity required to produce the right amount of carbon-14 in Earth’s atmosphere, they mistakenly calculated the total size of the event as if the flare was emitted in all directions from the Sun, forming an expanding bubble of charged particles. In reality, solar flares erupt in directional jets, as can be seen in this NASA video.

Obviously, that brings down the required size of the event considerably. Still, it leaves it some 20 times larger than the 1859 Carrington Event—the largest solar flare recorded from the Sun. Events that large have been observed on other stars, so it’s possible our Sun is capable of it, as well.

While the lack of a historical record for an event like that is still conspicuous, the revised calculation also reduces the impact it would have on the ozone layer. The Japanese group believed it would be large enough to cause a mass extinction event, but the Kansas researchers disagree. “The results are consistent with moderate biological effects: reduction of primary photosynthesis in the oceans and increased risk of erythaema and skin cancer, but no major mass-extinction level effects as implied earlier,” they wrote.

A bit of self-correction

This is the self-correcting nature of science at work. Not everything gets caught by peer review, and mistakes get published. That’s not as big of a problem as it could be because scientists are, as a rule, a distrustful lot. Unlike lesser mortals, their eyes don’t glaze over when they reach the methods section of a paper. (Okay, sometimes they do.) When the Kansas researchers found a number that didn’t seem to make sense, they sat down and worked it out.

Sometimes, this kind of scrutiny results in the critic realizing that the, while surprising, a result was apparently correct. From there, they might devise a way to investigate or test it in another context. In other instances, like this one, an error is discovered and corrected so everyone can get on with the business of figuring stuff out.

As for whatever appears to have occurred in 774, all options are back on the table. If there was a significant event, and it was caused by a massive solar flare, it would behoove us to learn all we can about it. While the effects back in 774 could have been a bit unpleasant, folks then didn’t rely on digital infrastructure and a global communication network, so it wouldn't have been as disruptive.

Interesting and good to see science at work. It just reaffirms my fear though about solar flares. That and a supernova fairly close to us are more frightening to me than nuclear war. The latter we can control. The other two are out of our hands and it's just a matter of when.

Interesting and good to see science at work. It just reaffirms my fear though about solar flares. That and a supernova fairly close to us are more frightening to me than nuclear war. The latter we can control. The other two are out of our hands and it's just a matter of when.

4ish billion years of life and not a single event like this has caused a mass extinction that we know of. Apparently, they're not worth worrying about.

About that last sentence: "folks then didn't rely on digital infrastructure and a global communication network, so it wouldn't have been as disruptive".

Apparently a strong CME (Coronal Mass Ejection) pointed directly at the earth would throw our civilization back into the stone age in the blink of an eye. It would fry our power grid and electronics at least; disrupt the magnetosphere, theoretically trigger earthquakes along the fault lines, trigger volcanic activity, tsunamis and that sort of stuff.

If only there were some science/engineering activity that could be directed at eventually moving some of humankind out of this one basket. But no, that would be a ridiculous waste of money, wouldn't it.

Not sure about that Anglo-Saxon Chronicle source. 793 AD looks even better with ".. immense sheets of light rushing through the air, and whirlwinds, and fiery, dragons flying across the firmament". Flying fiery dragons trumps a red crucifix after sunset in my book.

Interesting and good to see science at work. It just reaffirms my fear though about solar flares. That and a supernova fairly close to us are more frightening to me than nuclear war. The latter we can control. The other two are out of our hands and it's just a matter of when.

4ish billion years of life and not a single event like this has caused a mass extinction that we know of. Apparently, they're not worth worrying about.

And yet there are catastrophic events many steps short of mass extinction I would rather not see happen, thank you.

Interesting and good to see science at work. It just reaffirms my fear though about solar flares. That and a supernova fairly close to us are more frightening to me than nuclear war. The latter we can control. The other two are out of our hands and it's just a matter of when.

4ish billion years of life and not a single event like this has caused a mass extinction that we know of. Apparently, they're not worth worrying about.

I wouldn't make such an assumption. I wasn't aware we had a definite understanding on what's caused the various mass extinctions throughout the years. Besides, like someone else pointed out I'm not worried about mass extinction but rather a total ass kicking back to the stone ages that one of these could cause us.

About that last sentence: "folks then didn't rely on digital infrastructure and a global communication network, so it wouldn't have been as disruptive".

Apparently a strong CME (Coronal Mass Ejection) pointed directly at the earth would throw our civilization back into the stone age in the blink of an eye. It would fry our power grid and electronics at least; disrupt the magnetosphere, theoretically trigger earthquakes along the fault lines, trigger volcanic activity, tsunamis and that sort of stuff.

No physical connection to any kind of seismic of volcanic activity that I can think of.

About that last sentence: "folks then didn't rely on digital infrastructure and a global communication network, so it wouldn't have been as disruptive".

Apparently a strong CME (Coronal Mass Ejection) pointed directly at the earth would throw our civilization back into the stone age in the blink of an eye. It would fry our power grid and electronics at least; disrupt the magnetosphere, theoretically trigger earthquakes along the fault lines, trigger volcanic activity, tsunamis and that sort of stuff.

Yeah, it's a real shame no one is trained on how to repair our power grids and electronics. Damn that hindsight...

On the other hand, your version would make for a great movie or video game.

In the upper half to quarter for science department graduate schools. Not stellar, but not butt of joke worthy.

I'm sorry if there was any misunderstanding. So much is left out of a general conversation or statements when the internet is left to it's own devices. My statement was more of a tongue-in-cheek poke at the controversies surrounding Kansas and the Board of Education debacle and the responses of the scientific community as a result of. Universities generally avoid a lot of this nonsense and I'm sure Kansas has some fine institutions of higher learning. As does Tennessee, but I digress.

About that last sentence: "folks then didn't rely on digital infrastructure and a global communication network, so it wouldn't have been as disruptive".

Apparently a strong CME (Coronal Mass Ejection) pointed directly at the earth would throw our civilization back into the stone age in the blink of an eye. It would fry our power grid and electronics at least; disrupt the magnetosphere, theoretically trigger earthquakes along the fault lines, trigger volcanic activity, tsunamis and that sort of stuff.

No physical connection to any kind of seismic of volcanic activity that I can think of.

About that last sentence: "folks then didn't rely on digital infrastructure and a global communication network, so it wouldn't have been as disruptive".

Apparently a strong CME (Coronal Mass Ejection) pointed directly at the earth would throw our civilization back into the stone age in the blink of an eye. It would fry our power grid and electronics at least; disrupt the magnetosphere, theoretically trigger earthquakes along the fault lines, trigger volcanic activity, tsunamis and that sort of stuff.

Yeah, it's a real shame no one is trained on how to repair our power grids and electronics. Damn that hindsight...

On the other hand, your version would make for a great movie or video game.

I'm not sure about all of the other stuff, but the power grid thing is a very real problem. A strong induced current from a geomagnetic storm can cause irreparable damage to large distribution transformers that have lead times of months and that's if they don't all get fried at once. It's not an issue of being able to fix it, its an issue of time to restore and scale.

About that last sentence: "folks then didn't rely on digital infrastructure and a global communication network, so it wouldn't have been as disruptive".

Apparently a strong CME (Coronal Mass Ejection) pointed directly at the earth would throw our civilization back into the stone age in the blink of an eye. It would fry our power grid and electronics at least; disrupt the magnetosphere, theoretically trigger earthquakes along the fault lines, trigger volcanic activity, tsunamis and that sort of stuff.

Yeah, it's a real shame no one is trained on how to repair our power grids and electronics. Damn that hindsight...

On the other hand, your version would make for a great movie or video game.

What are you going to do when EVERYTHING breaks down at once? And most of your tools and test equipment and spare parts are also broken? And the factories that make new spare parts are broken? And the trucks that deliver the spare parts are broken? Are you getting the picture yet? Because the picture is broken and melted too.

About that last sentence: "folks then didn't rely on digital infrastructure and a global communication network, so it wouldn't have been as disruptive".

Apparently a strong CME (Coronal Mass Ejection) pointed directly at the earth would throw our civilization back into the stone age in the blink of an eye. It would fry our power grid and electronics at least; disrupt the magnetosphere, theoretically trigger earthquakes along the fault lines, trigger volcanic activity, tsunamis and that sort of stuff.

No physical connection to any kind of seismic of volcanic activity that I can think of.

About that last sentence: "folks then didn't rely on digital infrastructure and a global communication network, so it wouldn't have been as disruptive".

Apparently a strong CME (Coronal Mass Ejection) pointed directly at the earth would throw our civilization back into the stone age in the blink of an eye. It would fry our power grid and electronics at least; disrupt the magnetosphere, theoretically trigger earthquakes along the fault lines, trigger volcanic activity, tsunamis and that sort of stuff.

Yeah, it's a real shame no one is trained on how to repair our power grids and electronics. Damn that hindsight...

On the other hand, your version would make for a great movie or video game.

What are you going to do when EVERYTHING breaks down at once? And most of your tools and test equipment and spare parts are also broken? And the factories that make new spare parts are broken? And the trucks that deliver the spare parts are broken? Are you getting the picture yet? Because the picture is broken and melted too.

Yeah, it would suck, and it would take a while to do a full reboot. However, we aren't going to get "thrown back into the stone age", because we know more now than we did then. We built all of these things and we can fix them.

Yeah, it's a real shame no one is trained on how to repair our power grids and electronics. Damn that hindsight...

On the other hand, your version would make for a great movie or video game.

The sarcasm is appreciated, but when you get past the jokes and stop to think about the scale of damage - repairs will take months. Can you handle months without electricity? Did you not hear about what happened with Sandy and people lining up for gas? Now, imagine along with transformers being taken out for half the planet, other sensitive electronics are fried. As in 'you have to replace the motherboard in your computer' fried.

dsleif wrote:

Yeah, it would suck, and it would take a while to do a full reboot. However, we aren't going to get "thrown back into the stone age", because we know more now than we did then. We built all of these things and we can fix them.

While we won't be going back into the stone age, imagine months of Katrina and Sandy (lines for fuel and escalating fights at gas stations) aftermath. Some people are morons and there would be trouble.

I wouldn't make such an assumption. I wasn't aware we had a definite understanding on what's caused the various mass extinctions throughout the years. Besides, like someone else pointed out I'm not worried about mass extinction but rather a total ass kicking back to the stone ages that one of these could cause us.

Fair enough on the "mass extinctions are a subset of bad stuff" point--I thought you were expressing a life-existential worry. My point is, even if every mass extinction that we know about (and some that we don't) without a known cause were eventually determined to be caused by a solar flare or supernova, it'd still be a once in a hundreds of millions of years danger.

Yeah, I'm aware of that stuff, but don't buy it. There have been some interesting signals that earthquakes might cause ionospheric disturbances of some kind (which I don't understand, and I'm not sure if anyone does), but I've never heard a mechanism proposed that could plausibly provide a causal link in the other direction. Tectonic stresses are huge, brutal things. I've no idea how some charged particles or increased UV from the Sun are supposed to affect that.

Easy to point to earthquakes that occurred during solar storms-- both happen all the time. That doesn't even rise to the level of the ol' Texas Sharpshooter. There isn't even a cluster-- you're just ignoring all the other holes.

I wouldn't make such an assumption. I wasn't aware we had a definite understanding on what's caused the various mass extinctions throughout the years. Besides, like someone else pointed out I'm not worried about mass extinction but rather a total ass kicking back to the stone ages that one of these could cause us.

Fair enough on the "mass extinctions are a subset of bad stuff" point--I thought you were expressing a life-existential worry. My point is, even if every mass extinction that we know about (and some that we don't) without a known cause were eventually determined to be caused by a solar flare or supernova, it'd still be a once in a hundreds of millions of years danger.

True enough and I guess it is a bit of an irrational fear. Besides, even though we can control nuclear war over the other two it's far more likely we'll blow ourselves up far before some rogue supernova or CME hits us.

About that last sentence: "folks then didn't rely on digital infrastructure and a global communication network, so it wouldn't have been as disruptive".

Apparently a strong CME (Coronal Mass Ejection) pointed directly at the earth would throw our civilization back into the stone age in the blink of an eye. It would fry our power grid and electronics at least; disrupt the magnetosphere, theoretically trigger earthquakes along the fault lines, trigger volcanic activity, tsunamis and that sort of stuff.

Yeah, it's a real shame no one is trained on how to repair our power grids and electronics. Damn that hindsight...

On the other hand, your version would make for a great movie or video game.

What are you going to do when EVERYTHING breaks down at once? And most of your tools and test equipment and spare parts are also broken? And the factories that make new spare parts are broken? And the trucks that deliver the spare parts are broken? Are you getting the picture yet? Because the picture is broken and melted too.

I don't think my hand tools will be broken, or my lathe, or my milling machine. Their motors may be useless, but New England did a lot with just water power, and many of the dams are still there. And we're Yankees (some of us, anyway), so we can probably get those tools up and running without too much help. We did it once and we can do it again. (Starrett Tools factory is still in Athol, where they started, and they have a d@mn nice dam, all ready to go)

And without any interruptions from those d@mn robocallers, we'll get it done that much faster.

Edit Edit: Wouldn't it just affect the side of the planet facing the CME? Did we put all of our factories on that side of the planet? Shame on us.

actually while it might not fry everything, a significant loss of equipment would in fact cause a kind of amnesia... not a real one but if everybody is busy trying to survive they won't be able to fix these things. Having said that I do take your point, our survivors once they reestablish a form of civic society, would be far ahead of a stone age citizen. BUT, many of the techniques needed to create tools in a low tech society are very different and mostly forgotten. In today's society, for example there is no single person that can create a complete modern everyday tool like the cell phone. The engineer that designs the cell phone for example has no idea how to produce some of the basic things that go into making that cell phone, like the plastic or glass or extraction of some of the metals or.. you get the idea.

What are you going to do when EVERYTHING breaks down at once? And most of your tools and test equipment and spare parts are also broken? And the factories that make new spare parts are broken? And the trucks that deliver the spare parts are broken? Are you getting the picture yet? Because the picture is broken and melted too.

I don't think my hand tools will be broken, or my lathe, or my milling machine. Their motors may be useless, but New England did a lot with just water power, and many of the dams are still there. And we're Yankees (some of us, anyway), so we can probably get those tools up and running without too much help. We did it once and we can do it again. (Starrett Tools factory is still in Athol, where they started, and they have a d@mn nice dam, all ready to go)

And without any interruptions from those d@mn robocallers, we'll get it done that much faster.

Great for you. Still you will have a word-wide breakdown of all transportation, manufacturing and communication infrastructure, including food-production and transportation. Expect far-spread famines and a near-total collapse of society. If you're living in the woods and can produce your own food (and defend it) you may do fine. In developed countries this won't be the case for most, though.

damn.. forgot to mention that a CME would affect the whole world, the damage isn't done directly by the CME its done by the fluctuations of earths magnetic field. tho CME would fry anything that it directly hits if its not shielded correctly that isn't what will happen to earth. so we will be safe from the actual ejection but not from the effects it causes.

Yeah, it's a real shame no one is trained on how to repair our power grids and electronics. Damn that hindsight...

If everything was fried at once then simple repair ability would not be enough. There'd be no-where near enough spares, nor the ability to get them into place before a major economic collapse and massive loss of life.

How long do you think our biggest cities would last without water supplies, sewerage, food and transport?. Our procedures for disaster recovery involve bringing in supplies from places not affected to areas devastated. If everywhere is nuked at once, there is no safe "somewhere else" to get help from.

Apparently a strong CME (Coronal Mass Ejection) pointed directly at the earth would throw our civilization back into the stone age in the blink of an eye. It would fry our power grid and electronics at least; disrupt the magnetosphere, theoretically trigger earthquakes along the fault lines, trigger volcanic activity, tsunamis and that sort of stuff.

Ehhh, people like to paint these doomsday scenarios, but the truth is that the grid is somewhat insulated from such things. It wouldn't be much fun, but in the worst case scenario they just shut off some power plants for a few days. It wouldn't be the end of the world, and even most of our satellites would be just fine.

And really, the whole "triggering earthquakes/volcanos/tsunamis" thing is more doomsday predictions. It won't do any more than the crust already does on its own.

If you want to put the fear of uncontrollable death from the skies in the proper perspective (while also learning really cool stuff) try Death from the Skies by Phil Plait.

Spoiler alert: In general as the types of cosmic doom the universe could rain down on us get increasingly unavoidable and devastating (up to and including 'you never see it coming and it kills everything'), they also get increasingly unlikely (up to and including 'the sun's going to cook the planet anyway long before that happens'). Not much sense worrying about something that's basically never going to happen and you could never do anything about anyway.

Conveniently the things that are most common are also things we can mitigate or avoid entirely (and also even more common as non-life-ending events). Solar flares and asteroids still shouldn't keep you up at night worrying -- unless you're working on a project to detect or deflect asteroids, of course.

Interesting and good to see science at work. It just reaffirms my fear though about solar flares. That and a supernova fairly close to us are more frightening to me than nuclear war. The latter we can control. The other two are out of our hands and it's just a matter of when.

The fact that you're going to die of something is also out of our control.

About that last sentence: "folks then didn't rely on digital infrastructure and a global communication network, so it wouldn't have been as disruptive".

Apparently a strong CME (Coronal Mass Ejection) pointed directly at the earth would throw our civilization back into the stone age in the blink of an eye. It would fry our power grid and electronics at least; disrupt the magnetosphere, theoretically trigger earthquakes along the fault lines, trigger volcanic activity, tsunamis and that sort of stuff.

If only there were some science/engineering activity that could be directed at eventually moving some of humankind out of this one basket. But no, that would be a ridiculous waste of money, wouldn't it.

damn.. forgot to mention that a CME would affect the whole world, the damage isn't done directly by the CME its done by the fluctuations of earths magnetic field. tho CME would fry anything that it directly hits if its not shielded correctly that isn't what will happen to earth. so we will be safe from the actual ejection but not from the effects it causes.

Just unplug. IA fast CME travels up to 3000 km/s. Assuming the worst case super-powerful CME is pointed straight at Earth and travels at max speed, we'll detect that it's coming about 13 hours before it hits.

That's plenty of warning for you to protect your personal property: take your house off the grid, unplug any sensitive devices. Your car will not be affected anyway.

The electric grid can even be partially shut down to prevent damage. Take the generators off-line, open long-distance links, ground the lines. With good planning for a major event, we could come through such an event with almost no damage to ground-based infrastructure. But a lot of satellites would likely be impossible to save. We'd just have to see what was still working after the event.

For the ozone loss, we might have to put on some hats and long sleeves for a while. Or does radiation make extra ozone? I forget.

I guess I'm more worried about what loss of ozone would to to crops. It would suck if we had a worldwide crop failure.

Does this sort of unexpected carbon flux affect the accuracy of carbon dating?

It's the sort of thing that would fool a careless researcher. Unlike some other radioactive materials, you can't estimate how much C14 you started with by looking at its decay product, because N14 doesn't exactly uniquely come from C14 decay. A smart researcher looks at records of atmospheric levels (like these tree rings) and searches for a fit. So, as long as you know the amount of C14 was high in 774, you know that things that died in 774 or very shortly after could appear overly young, and consider that in your dating. A typical analysis would look at tree rings from various years, where the years are known from simply counting rings, and compare the carbon ratios in those years to the ones in your sample, and find a match that way. Barring deliberate and careful sabotage, it's pretty much foolproof when done that way.